Off on the Wrong Foot
by Lyowyn
Summary: The French Revolution, as told by Aziraphale's right shoe.


I have no memories before the angel.

Surely, I existed before that, but I do not know how I came to be. Perhaps I was made by cobbler elves, spun from moonbeams and twilight, to sheen opalescent on fleet feet through the dancing of the world. Perhaps I was always destined to adorn the graceful, silk stockinged, foot of my master as he goes about the business of God.

"Or maybe you were shite out of a worm's arsehole and woven together by hungry, underpaid, children in a sweat shop, so that you can clod around on the stinky foot of this bourgeois pig," my counterpart suggested.

It was Lefty, the only black mark in my otherwise serene existence. Lefty had once trodden in dog excrement in 1789, and had been in a foul mood ever since.

"That's a bit rich coming from you," I told my other half. "The well-heeled calling the well-to-do, affluent. We aren't exactly the work boots of the proletariat."

"A bit less gilding, and we might not be in this mess."

_This mess,_ involved the molding masonry of the Bastille beneath our heels, and I had to concede the point. Without divine intervention, there was a good chance that we would end the day burning on a pyre of corpses.

"We should be safe in our shoebox back in London," Lefty was going on. "He's no business coming here dressed like this. What's he thinking?"

"Hush. Who's this, now?"

A jolly, fat man had entered our cell. He wore the sort of scuffed black boots that were less likely to earn one a good head-cutting. I stuck my tongue out at them in disdain. "What's he saying?" I asked Lefty.

"How the bugger should I know. He's speaking French. Do I look like I speak, fucking, French?"

Apparently the Angel didn't either, but it wasn't a problem for long. Our circumstances seemed dire indeed, until the world suddenly froze around us, and _he _was there.

The demon.

_Crowley._

I swooned. I preened. I glistened. I gleamed. My silk was lustrous and glowing. My buckle caught the candlelight, and I pointed my toe with a cocky air of self-assurance. I begged him to notice me. This was it. This was my purpose in existence. I was here to impress this suave, demonic, dreamboat. Only… _what in God's name was he wearing_?

"Thank God," Lefty said. "We're saved. The Demon will talk some sense into this lunatic."

"You could put a bit of effort in, you know," I told him, as Aziraphale turned my heel just so to capture the light, and I shone brilliant. "You have a scuff on your toe."

"I'm as eager to knock boots with those snake-skins as you," Lefty said. "Doesn't mean I have to make a complete fool of myself over it. Maybe you should try a little dignity."

"Who needs dignity when you have style?"

"You're about as stylish as a tartan necktie."

"We're a matched set, you loafer," I pointed out.

"Who you calling a loafer?"

"Shut up. I'm trying to listen. Maybe they'll take us _dancing_."

"In the middle of a revolution? What have you been stepping in?"

"Shut up," I said again, and then all Hell broke loose.

For a moment, I was nowhere, and then I was crammed onto the sweaty, wool stockinged, foot of the pudgy Frenchman, and the angel and the demon were gone. Lefty was cursing on the other foot, but I had my own problems. My angel was gone. There was a bunion pressing into my lining, and then I was being dragged over the dirty floor, and thumping down a set of stone steps, snagging my delicate silk on a jag of masonry.

"What's that?" I demanded, as my toe slid through something wet and sticky.

"Their head-cutting machine seems to make quite the mess."

"Get it off me. Help!"

"What do you expect me to do?"

"Maybe if we just loosened our buckles, we could sort of slip off before they drag us up onto that platform," I suggested.

We both tried for a while, but the revolutionary's big, fat, French, feet were jammed far too tightly into our soles to have any hope of slipping free.

"It's no use," Lefty said. "I'm starting to think this guy deserves it anyway. He has no business being this fat when the people are revolting due to starvation."

"We're ruined anyway," I said, desolately. "There's no way these stains are going to come out. I'm afraid we're on our last legs; we'll be kicking the bucket before sundown."

After the slice of the guillotine blade, we finally gave up, and lay still in the pile of dead bodies and all the other forgotten finery—waiting for the fire.

Some unknown time passed, as the crowds abated, and we lay there, accumulating more stains and filth.

And then, a miracle happened.

Crowley looked down on us in the light of a torch, and we were clean once more. "There we are," he said, brushing his hand lightly over our toes, and I shivered. "Gorgeous pair of shoes like you, we can't just let the grave robbers have you. You're the only stylish thing Aziraphale owns."

He was smiling and tilting us from side to side, admiring the way we sparkled.

"I might just have to wear these myself," he said. "Not until we get back to England though." He tilted his head up to look at the bulk of the guillotine and shuddered. "There's no place like home."


End file.
